A tale told by an idiot, filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing

Are we basing our answers on short-term test and assessment scores? Do they measure what we really are about?

Schools are measuring what did the students learn. I understand that. I was part of a team that worked with the Senate HELP committee while ESSA was being drafted. Our focus was on assessments, and how the new law could possibly correct what we believed were flaws in NCLB that led to SBAC, PAARC and an overemphasis on short-term, high stakes testing. We celebrated when ESSA was signed into law by President Obama. We didn’t get all we wanted, but we understood that politics is the art of compromise. While we didn’t necessarily agree with the language of ESSA, we realized that is was an improvement over NCLB, doors leading toward authentic and competency-based assessements have been created.

While schools are asking what students learned, the world we are preparing our students for is asking can students learn. There is a bit of a difference in priorities.

Luis E. Torres, an amazing educator and leader, recently reminded me that for many of his students, as with many of mine throughout my career, education is, at best, the 5th priority in their lives. It follows food, shelter, safety, and health. That is their reality. For too many of us, we believe that education should be the 1st priority in their lives. Someday, we will realize that we have to take care of the Maslow stuff before we can really worry about the Bloom stuff. We are now raising our students as much as we are teaching them, and many of us were not trained to do that. It isn’t in the Common Core, and it isn’t assessed in the annual School Improvement Plan.

We work at “engaging” our students, hoping to excite them about our content, our interests, and curricula that we know to be important.

School is no longer about passing the tests. It’s about survival. It’s about life.

I suggest that until we see our schools as the people who need us most see them, we are never going to be able to engage them.

This was brought home to me while listening to a TED talk presented by Kasim Reed, Mayor of the City of Atlanta. He shared a story about a visit to a home located in a rather interesting Atlanta neighborhood while he was running for the office. He gave Mrs. Owens his elevator speech about the booming Atlanta economy, how the city was home to the busiest passenger airport in the world, and was proud of the many fine restaurants located all over the city.

Sidebar – as a former resident of suburban Atlanta, I can vouch for his elevator speech, I could move back there in a heartbeat. End of Sidebar.

Mrs. Owens then invited the candidate to see the Atlanta she knew. She pointed to the city park across the street from her house, noting the boys shooting dice in a swimming pool that should have been filled with water, and the gang graffitied gazebo. She told Mr. Reed that she was a pretty good cook, so she didn’t eat at any of the fine restaurants, and didn’t feel very safe riding the bus after dark. She also didn’t fly, so the airport really didn’t matter to her. Mr. Reed left her house feeling that he didn’t get her vote. But he changed his approach, and won the election.

We need to change our approach.

With apologies to those of us who follow Charlotte Danielson, Robert Marzano, et al, we don’t need engaged students, we need empowered students.

We need to see our schools through their eyes, giving them the knowledge and skills to pursue their passions, their interests, and enable them to become the architects of their futures. We need to play with them in their world, not expect them to play with us in our world.

We empower others by listening to them. We need to listen to our students. And we need to listen to those who will eventually hire them. They don’t care as much about what kids know as they care about what kids can learn and do.

Ian Jukes captured it in his book Living on the Future Edge, “In a world where change is constant, you can’t trust your eyes. You think they are showing you reality, when, in fact, they are showing you history.”

Our Compelled Tribe task is to share our favorite books that have impacted us professionally. The 3 or 4 of you who regularly read my stuff realize that my career has been a bit eclectic, unorthodox, and rather long, however effective. Not surprisingly, so is this list. Put another way, when I started my professional journey, the US Department of Education existed only as part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Law 94-142 had just become law, my first district was working under a court order requiring bussing for desegregation.

Jon Wennstrom echoed my graduate school advisor when he wrote that the more you read the more you learn. Read a lot, learned a lot.

Here goes, some you may have heard of, hopefully some you have also read, and I’m sure there will be a few you have never heard of. But they certainly mattered to me.

First on the list was my History of American Education class textbook from graduate school. It helped me understand what we do, why we do it, and how we got here. Introduced me to Frederick Taylor, the Committee of Ten, Andrew Carnegie and his units. Savage Inequalities by Jonathon Kozol was also a foundation read. In the words of Daisaku Ikeda, “A healthy vision of the future is not possible without an accurate knowledge of the past.”

By category, here is my list:

LEADERSHIP

In Search of Excellence – Tom Peters

Thriving on Chaos – Tom Peters

Leadership and the New Science – Margaret Wheatley

Only the Paranoid Survive – Andrew Grove

Enlighten Leadership – Ed Oakley and Doug Krug

Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell

The Visionaries Handbook: 9 Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business – Watts Wacker, Jim Taylor, Howard Means

Digital Disruptioin – James McQuivey

From Master Teacher to Master Learner – Will Richardson

Why School – Will Richardson

The New Culture of Learning – Douglas Thomas, John Seeley Brown

The Element – Ken Robinson

Leaders Guide to 21st Century Education – Ken Kay, Valerie Greenhill

Who Owns the Learning – Alan November

Understanding the Digital Generation: Teaching and Learning in the new Digital Landscape – Ian Jukes

Reinventing Learning for the Always On Generation – Ian Jukes

The End of Average – Todd Rose

One Size Does Not Fit All – Nikhil Goyal

The Hack Learning Series – various authors

Disrupting Class – Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn, Curtis Johnson

Change Forces – Michael Fullan

The Monster Under the Bed – Stan Davis, Jim Boykin

The World is Flat – Thomas Friedman

Launch – John Spencer, AJ Juliana

The Weaving Influence Series – Mark Miller Pretty sure not many of you have heard of any of these, but they are fantastic. Leadership stories through parables. Check out Leaders Made Here, Chess, Not Checkers, and Talent Magnet. More are being published as we speak, keep an eye out for them through the High-Performance Series

INNOVATION / CHANGE

The Macintosh Way – Guy Kawasaki

Rules for Revolutionaries – Guy Kawasaki

The Eden Conspiracy – Dr. Joe Harless

A Whack on the Side of the Head – Roger von Oech

Expect the Unexpected or You Won’t Find It – Roger von Oech

If It Ain’t Broke, Break It – Robert J. Kriegel, Louis Parker

Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers – Robert J. Kriegel, David Brandt

First, Break All the Rules – Marcus Buckinham, Curt Coffman

Paradigms – Joel Barker

The Innovator’s Mindset – George Couros

The Question Behind the Question – John Miller

Flipping the Switch – John Miller

NOT TRENDY ANYMORE, BUT SHOULD BE IF WE ARE TRULY IN A DATA DRIVEN ENVIRONMENT

Yeah, you didn’t find much of anything by the traditional authors of educational literature. Not many of my titles are offered through ASCD. But I’ve had a great run for about 40 years, changed the rules of how schools work based on what I’ve internalized about how kids learn differently today than we learned when we were their age. I’ve been fortunate to work with, and learn from, some amazing colleagues both within the profession and outside of it. I have no complaints, and I make no apologies, for my resume.

In a recent post, All The Right Notes, Jon Wennstrom brilliantly captured what all of us believe when he wrote, “There are so many good teachers in the world of education. Those that do the right thing at the right time. But there are also great educators out there too! Educators that challenge the status quo, who take risks and try new things, and whose passion for doing whatever it takes to make students successful is evident in everything they do. That’s the kind of educator I want to be and that’s the kind of educators that I want to encourage ALL our teachers to be!”

He followed it up with, “You don’t have to be bad to want to get better.” I commented on his post that “game changers don’t necessarily break the rules, they change them.”

Early in my career as a change agent, I found a fantastic book by Roger von Oech, A Whack on the Side of the Head – How You Can be More Creative. The lessons of this book proved invaluable in my work.

Educator Rudolph Flesch described it as follows: “Creative thinking may simply mean the realization that there is no particular virtue in doing things the way they have always been done.” It runs as follows”

1. We make rules based on reasons that make a lot of sense.

2. We follow these rules.

3. Times passes, and things change.

4. The original reason for the generation of these rules no longer exist, but because the rules are still in place, we continue to follow them.

To follow up on Jon’s post, Beethoven challenged the rules of composition that Clementine, and others, followed. Music was forever changed. Think about it, almost every advance in art, cooking, medicine, agriculture, marketing, politics, education, and design has occurred when someone challenged the rules and tried another approach.

In my organizations, part of our culture was that Every rule here can be challenged except this one.

I’m constantly amazed at the number of items that appear in my inbox and social media feeds on a daily/weekly basis that attempt to address the topics of change and innovation in schools. Well meaning and certainly qualified authors post and share articles with titles like “10 Characteristics for Innovation…”, “5 Things Everyone Needs to Know About…”, as if changing the status quo can happen by checking off boxes on a checklist.

It isn’t that easy.

Based on my experiences, it starts with a personal commitment to fundamental change. Second Order change, if I may use that term. Not First Order change, which is usually what I read about. Simplistic definition for those of you not familiar with the terms: First Order change (strategies) – things like smaller classes, site-based councils, 90 minute teaching blocks, small learning communities, and teaching teams with common planning. Things that exist within the status quo. Second Order change (philosophies) – things like changing relationships and teaching philosophies, collaborative ownership,extended teaching and learning opportunities, new interactions/relationships, and coordinated focused curriculum and instruction. Things that exist outside the status quo.

A somewhat poor analogy in these changing times, the difference between doing things right and doing the right things.

What follows is a paper I wrote in 1993 for a class I was taking to earn my Superintendent of Schools endorsement from Colorado State University. My attitudes have not changed since this was written.

At the time, I was Superintendent of a rather small, rural school district in Southern Colorado. Our demographics were rather unique, 95% of our students qualified for free/reduced meals, 85% were Hispanic surname, we were definitely a minority-majority district. As part of a settlement of a lawsuit in Federal court in the mid-1980’s, every student new to the district was required to take a language assessment screener to determine home language, upon which we had to base further instruction. Based on that screener, approximately 10% of our entering students in a given year did not speak any language proficiently enough to consider it a home language.

Our parents had the same hopes, dreams and aspirations for their children as did parents in the most affluent districts. In order to achieve them, we had to change the rules of the game. The playing field was not leveled to benefit our kids.

The following was my crossing of the Rubicon:

“Professionally, we spend a great deal of time trying to “identify ourselves,” and use that knowledge as a foundation for further professional growth. As was probably obvious (during a classroom discussion), I have become somewhat frustrated because where I have “found myself” professionally is very much at odds with the general system of public education in which I work. As core beliefs, I believe”

1. We teach children, not a subject area or grade level;

2. Every child comes to school with the desire to achieve and be successful;

3. As a teacher, I control the classroom conditions which determine student success or failure; and

4. Since I control the conditions, I am responsible for the success and failures of my students in my classroom.

However, there are inherent constraints within the system which make if difficult to effect significant, positive change. We need to start asking the fundamental questions about what we do and more importantly, why we are doing it. Activities which run counter to organizational objectives are often seen as “perpetuating the bureaucracy” rather than the system impediments they are. It would be nice if Collective Bargaining Agreements and Accountability Reports shared a common Table of Contents. We have paid so much lip service to “restructuring” and “change”, yet we do so little beyond the rhetoric. At what point will we start doing what we have been talking about? As long as we stop just with the rhetoric, we will continue to “do things right.” When we start questioning the fundamentals and aligning our systems’ activities and objectives, only then will we start “doing the right things.”

As I mentioned in class, I believe it is time to tear at least part of the system down, and I am at a point where my core beliefs are being challenged and the question being raised at the personal level is whether or not I am willing to make the sacrifices necessary to “do the right things.” I guess the gut check is whether I will, in essence, sell out professionally to protect what has become a very comfortable lifestyle for my wife and family. Put another way, am I hungry enough to challenge the system or too fat and comfortable to want to change. I am reminded of the film “Teachers” and the conflict between the assistant principal who has been prostituted into the system and the teacher who challenges it. I sincerely believe that the harder you work at something, the harder it is to see it fail. But I am wondering if it is worth staying in the system if restructuring stays at the rhetorical level. Effective change cannot happen from outside the system, but will the system allow it to happen from within? In a nutshell, I passionately want the system to work and want to be part of it. But am I willing to place my family on a sacrificial alter in order to achieve a set of professional goals?”

As for the rest of the story, I took the plunge, went all in, and risk my life and career to to the right things, not necessarily doing them right. I had reached my limit of attending meetings and conferences where we talked a lot about things that should happen, but never did. And we have all attended too many of them. In the fall of 1993, we initiated the Student Centered School Project in that district, which included an immersion into technology enhanced curriculum and instruction, with the requisite staff development. An uncommon event in 1993. Two years later, we were a Founding District of the Virtual High School Global Consortium, and helped invent the model of virtual school currently in use in nearly every state in the US. We changed the rules of how the game is played. And at the same time, using the Colorado Board of Education Accreditation Guidelines in place at the time, we went from being one of the lowest performing districts in Colorado to becoming one of the highest, particularly among minority-majority districts.

The hopes, dreams and aspirations of our parents for their children were becoming reality.

My point is simple, fundamental, lasting change cannot be accomplished with the help of a checklist. It requires a deep, personal commitment to make a difference, the willingness to fail greatly with your career on the line. To light your professional path by the light of the bridges you burn along the way. First Order change cannot be confused with innovation, however comfortable it makes us feel. Second Order change, what our profession and our students are crying out for, cannot happen in the course of a school year, and cannot be described in 240 characters.

More of the same, only louder, is no more acceptable today than it was in 1993. How many of us are willing to step up and give us the future, rather than just talk about it?

17 years ago today, I was working for the Department of Defense Education Activity, assigned to the Ft. Knox installation schools. My primary duties were as a curriculum and staff development specialist. College prep programs set me up well for the tasks that were expected in that role. I was also the Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection Officer for the post school system. That was the hat I wore on this day in 2001, and for the next couple of weeks. The Gold Repository at Ft. Knox was a target of an airliner, fortunately all flights were grounded before it could be hit. Neither college prep programs nor subsequent trainings with law enforcement, etc. could adequately prepare me for the challenges of that day, and the days that followed. We were surrounded by the best trained professional soldiers in the world. We knew we were secure. But we were not safe. We can practice for all kinds of crisis situations, but until we are forced to deal with the very real and human emotions of an actual event, the practice is just like another fire drill. We have a false sense of security that we can handle whatever is happening, but it is just that, a false sense of security. In schools, we deal with people. But we practice dealing with situations. We can’t practice looking into the eyes of our people during and after the event and assuring them that they are safe. Not just that they are safe today, but that they will also be safe tomorrow. Many decisions were made that day that I never imagined I would be a part of, reacting to events that none of us could have anticipated. I was very proud of the team I was part of that day, great people who didn’t do what they could that day, we did what what we had to be done. Wish I could forget some of what I learned that day. I pray that I never have to put that learning into practice again.

As we either finally go back to school for the new year, or get serious about it if we started before Labor Day, something to think about!!! Much of what we talk about in “school reform” and “innovation” is nothing more than a conversation about the cosmetics, not the fundamentals of schools that can actually make a difference and matter to our students. Too many school improvement plans start with “What?”. Too many meetings that purportedly are about increasing student performance start with “What?” Or “How”?. They seldom start with a conversation about what school should be for. They should start with “Why!” What is important in student lives and their futures is not measured on a series of assessments or a single high stakes one. But we typically don’t ask our kids what is important in their lives, neither do we ask those who work with our kids after they leave us what they consider important for our kids to know and do. If you are a school leader and want to know where to start to make a meaningful difference in your school, I suggest you look at the allocation of time, particularly in the roles of your student support staff. To be blunt, let your counselors be counselors, not the builders of student schedules, not doing the jobs of college admission intake. Let them counsel kids. Before you hire another teacher, think about hiring another counselor or school psychologist or social worker, someone who will work with the serious issues challenging your students, not someone who will help teach them something else they will soon forget. Someone who will prepare them to pass the test of LIFE, not the test of ESSA. Innovationplaylist.org is waiting for you, are you confident enough as a leader, and secure enough in your beliefs about what kids really need, to accept the challenge of really making a difference in your school, or will you continue to examine only the cosmetics?

Imagine yourself sitting on a park bench. You open a backpack and remove a reel to reel tape player. You push PLAY. You hear:

”Think about the end of the first week of school. Have you built a solid foundation of relationships with your kids? Your mission, Fellow Educators, should you choose to accept it, is to return to your classrooms after the last student has left. Clean off your desk. Take a pen and a blank sheet of paper. Without looking at a class roster or seating chart, write down the first names of each student in your home room/first period class. Beside the first name, write down something uniquely personal about that child that you learned this week. Something that has nothing to do with your class. Then greet each child Monday morning by talking about that one uniquely personal thing. This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds…”

Yes, you can do this. You can build that kind of relationship with each student. When every student learns that the first teacher they see every day knows and cares about them as a human, they feel valued and respected. And they will open themselves to learn from you, and every other teacher they see the rest of the day. School has become a safe place, not just a building.

May your students see your classroom where all are celebrated and none are tolerated.